Employer-sponsored health insurance historically offered access to affordable health care to many Americans of every social and economic class. Everyone from a janitor to the chief executive officer could access new advances in care. Even those with modest salaries could afford medical access for childbirth, hernia repairs, gall bladder removals, and children’s broken limbs. But low-wage workers face particular challenges in the current approach to health care financing. The good news is that there are specific actions employers and other health care purchasers can take to address the problem.
Despite the wide availability of employer-sponsored health insurance, low-wage workers face particular challenges in getting adequate coverage. Employers could take 6 specific actions to address this: 1) Offer these employees higher subsidies or more cross-subsidization from higher wage workers. 2) Provide them with a choice of at least one health plan with low out of pocket costs, and design health plans with low or no out of pocket cost for the highest value services. 3) Help them maximize potential outside subsidies, including government aid and subsidies from providers and pharmaceutical companies. 4) Offer plans with low out-of-pocket costs based on targeted narrow networks. 5) Carefully review incentives and subsidies. 6) Offer plans with robust navigation services and virtual visits. And 7) Continue to aggressively push for lower prices and lower overall costs.